


Ask Me How I Am

by MellytheHun



Series: Tumblr Sterek Prompts [22]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Coming Out, Confessions, Drabble, Embarrassment, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Making Out, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tumblr Prompt, accidentally coming out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 05:12:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19144246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: Anonymous asked: hey Melanie! I have been through all your tumblr fics in two days and i fell in love with your writing! So if you're taking prompts, could you write something with Stiles accidentally coming out to Derek and being like "shiit shit shit why did i just do that fuck" and trying to avoid D and all? if that's enough for a prompt. yey! x





	Ask Me How I Am

It’s past three in the morning when Derek walks exhaustedly into the loft, Stiles in tow.

With every step he takes, some of the dirt falls off him; the dried blood on the side of his neck is itching, and he's miserable. 

“That ceremony shouldn’t do anything - I mean, they didn’t even get to finish the casting.”

“You said yesterday all they’d need is blood,” Derek counters in a grumble as he toes off his muddy shoes.

“Yeah, but,” Stiles starts worriedly, scratching at under his chin, “No - I mean, probably not. I think they needed to kill you for the ritual to work.”

Derek glares at the floor, reaching behind himself to tug his shirt over his head.

“Deaton told you that they didn’t necessarily need to kill anyone. You’re not keeping your facts straight,” Derek asserts.

As Derek’s shirt rides up his torso, sliding over the small of his back, and up over his broad shoulders, Stiles mutters, “yeah, not the only thing I can’t seem to keep straight.”

Derek looks over his naked shoulder to cock a curious brow at Stiles. 

He’s standing there in his dirty, red jacket, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

His mouth opens and closes a few times, then he’s moving his eyes to anywhere but Derek, and then he’s gesturing vaguely at the door, and walking backwards towards it, stammering out, “wow - uhm, so - I - just - I’m just gonna - uhm - go ahead and - just -”

Derek doesn’t mean to allow Stiles to flounder so long, but he’s not sure what to say. He’s pretty sure that joke was meant to stay in Stiles' head, not that he minds, and he's not entirely surprised that Stiles is something other than heterosexual, but he doesn’t want to further embarrass Stiles by saying so.

Not to mention that Derek is notoriously bad with words (and he _knows_ that). 

He ends up watching uselessly as Stiles trips over Derek’s discarded shoe, stumbling backward, and turning redder with every passing second.

“Gonna - uh - scuh-doodle now - so -”

Then Stiles is turning tail, and out the door faster than Derek can stop him. 

He hears Stiles’ voice all the way to Jeep as he curses to himself manically, “fuck, fuck, fucking, fuckitty, fuck, fuck…”

Derek sighs, feeling nauseatingly fond.

Derek would see very little of Stiles for two weeks, and then _a whole lot_ of Stiles all at once.

 

* * *

 

Derek goes looking for Stiles the next day, to go together to see Deaton, and tell him about their coven-bust the night before, but Stiles isn’t home.

Derek texts Stiles while standing in his messy bedroom, but Stiles never replies. 

Before he gives up on waiting for Stiles to reply, he looks around Stiles’ bedroom, and has to fight the animalistic urge to take an article of clothing with him. 

He even picks out the shirt he’d like to take.

It’s dark blue, and lying strewn across the corner of his bed, maybe discarded in his sleep when he got too hot. It smells like him, in a way that seems like it would always smell like him, no matter how long it was away from him, or how many times it was washed.

The instinct to take it, to inhale it deeply, and keep it is strong, and a little disturbing.

Derek’s usually able to extinguish the want for Stiles’ scent, or presence, but there’s something peculiar going on now. He feels a bit like he’s standing on uneven ground. The insecurity born from it is taunting his instincts with the desire for Stiles’ company, like the pressure in the air before a storm.

With great effort, he leaves without stealing anything from Stiles.

He goes to Deaton by himself only to find that Stiles had been there in the morning without him, and had explained what happened. 

He drives home feeling strange.

 

* * *

 

A few days after that, Scott drops by the loft after school, wanting details about the coven.

When Derek opens the loft door, he glances a few times behind Scott, scents the air, and ignores the disappointment settling like spoiled milk in his stomach. 

“Where is Stiles?" 

Scott looks a bit sheepish, and replies, “oh, uh, he’s not feeling so hot. He’s at home.”

There’s some truth to what Scott is saying, so it’s hard to discern where the lie is.

Derek tries to stare the truth out of Scott for a while, but when it’s clear that’s getting him nowhere, he gives up, and lets Scott inside.

They talk about what the coven may have wanted to accomplish with their ritual, and why they chose Derek as a sacrifice. 

All the while that they’re debating motives, and suspects, Derek can only think to himself how much better Stiles’ input would be than either of theirs.

 

* * *

 

The next week, Derek bumps into the Sheriff at the grocery store.

The scent of Stiles isn’t exactly strong on the Sheriff, but it lingers.

Derek can tell in a single breath that they share a common space, but probably don’t touch very much.

Stiles’ scent clings to the Sheriff’s uniform like the cold clings to a winter jacket even after you step inside. It’s enough to excite a part of Derek he doesn’t like admitting to.

A part of him that feels maybe too excited at the prospect of seeing Stiles.

"Sheriff,” Derek greets.

“Derek,” Stiles’ father replies, “How are you?”

Derek nods, because he can’t make any words happen. 

Whenever someone asks him how he is, he struggles like this.

Reflexively, he wants to say, “I’m good,” because it makes people leave him alone. No one cares, after all. They ask, because that’s what they’re all trained to do once they learn how to make cohesive sounds in polite conversation.

No one wants to hear anything other than the customary, “alright,” “good,” “getting by,” “same old.” He doesn’t want to say, “I’m terrible,” because he’s got a beating heart, and legs that carry him far, and that’s a lot more than most of the people that associate with him can say. 

The question always seems so loaded.

He doesn’t know how to communicate what he feels. There aren’t words for it, really. There’s no easy go-to answer for, “I’m existing, I feel gutted, but I usually feel gutted, and I’m used to it. I don’t mean for you to worry, I don’t want pity, or sympathy really, I just don’t know how to be what I see on television, how to be what people expect me to be. I don’t know how to be ‘good,’ or ‘alright,’ or ‘happy.’”

“You?” Derek asks.

The Sheriff shrugs, and sighs, “taking it one day at a time.”

Derek nods again, and clears his throat before asking, “uhm, how’s Stiles?”

“Hiding in his room more than usual,” Stiles’ father replies, a knowing tilt to his voice, “You know anything about that?”

Derek shakes his head, and says tiredly, “I’m not sure.”

“Anything serious?”

“No,” Derek responds readily, because Stiles isn’t possessed, and no one else is dead, “No, nothing serious.”

“Alright,” he says, “Good, then.”

They have a weird departure, and Derek can’t help but feel like, if he were returning to a home where Stiles was waiting for him, he’d have been able to say, “I’m good.”

 

* * *

 

Stiles has successfully avoided any, and all interaction with Derek for two weeks when Derek sees him at the gas station.

Derek's just been inside to pay in cash, and steps out of the station, and towards his car when he sees the Jeep approaching.

He thinks he may even smile, because long periods without seeing Stiles fill him up with a foreign, anxious worry.

With every reappearance Stiles makes, Derek is met with an equally powerful sense of relief.

However, when Stiles’ eyes catch sight of Derek, he makes the quickest U-turn Derek has ever seen.

That’s where Derek draws the line. 

After he’s filled his tank, he follows in the direction of the Jeep, and pulls up in the drive of the Stilinski house, parking behind Stiles’ car. 

He doesn’t bother knocking on the door, because he knows Stiles won’t answer it. He checks his surroundings to make sure he’s not being watched, and then he scales Stiles’ wall, and pulls up his bedroom window.

“Jesus, Derek!” Stiles gasps, clutching his chest.

His heartbeat is erratic, and Derek is more bothered that he’s the source of Stiles’ anxiety than the fact that he’s reduced to breaking and entering again.

He climbs inside, shuts the window behind him, and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Why are you avoiding me.”

“Avoiding you?” Stiles asks, voice an octave higher than usual, “ _Avoiding_ you? I’m not - "

Derek’s severe eyebrows cut that sentence short.

Stiles sighs defeatedly, and sits down on his bed.

He rubs his eyes with the hearts of his palms, and groans, "man… I kind of... came _out_ to you. And I didn’t mean to.”

Derek’s brow furrows, and he asks, "you know I don’t care what your, uh, orientation is, right? And that I don't care how I found out, right?”

“Yeah, well, _I_ care.”

Derek frowns, understanding. He moves to sit next to Stiles, but Stiles still doesn’t move his face to look at Derek. 

With a sigh, Derek begins, "well, it’s not the worst way to come out.”

Stiles makes a disbelieving snort, and asks, “because you’d know so much about that?”

Derek moves his stare to the far wall, clasps his hands in the space between his knees, and shares, “when I was sixteen, my family and I were eating dinner in the living room, because Cora insisted on watching Monsters Inc. While my dad was digging around for the VHS, the T.V. was on mute, and I recognized this guy being interviewed…”

Stiles finally moves his hands, drops his arms, and looks at Derek.

Derek’s face feels hot, though, so he doesn’t meet Stiles’ eyes. 

“I said out loud, ‘I know that guy from somewhere. Where do I know him from?’ And I thought, maybe a movie, you know? He was wearing a suit and tie, being interviewed on a talk show, but I couldn’t place him. I started harassing Laura, I kept saying, ‘Where do I know this guy from? Do you know what movie he’s from?’ And Laura kept saying ‘no.’”

Derek sighs again, running a hand over his dry hair.

“Finally, Peter turned on the volume to figure out the guy’s name, and to get me to shut up, and on full volume, this guy is talking about what his life as a gay porn star is like.”

Stiles chokes on an abrupt laugh, covers his shocked smile with a hand, and Derek’s lips twitch up. 

“And not just _a_ porn star — he _explicitly_  detailed why he only did gay porn, and would never consider straight porn, and I just had to sit there in my shame.”

"Oh my God, Derek, that is the simultaneously the best and worst story I’ve ever heard,” Stiles tells him.

Derek can hear the smile in Stiles’ voice, and his scent has changed. The air in the room shifts, and Derek finally feels like he’s standing on even ground again.

He eventually looks at Stiles, and says, “coming out accidentally isn’t so bad now, is it?”

Stiles shakes his head, laughing, “nope. Not bad at all. I do not envy you, and I would definitely not trade you.”

Derek smiles, and jokingly offers, "it wasn’t a big surprise, anyway.”

Stiles scowls playfully at him, a smirk belittling the serious curve of his brow.

He shoves Derek’s shoulder, and says, "shut up, I am the _pinnacle_ of masculinity.”

Derek chuckles, “yeah, sure, Red Riding Hood.”

Stiles’ scent takes on a sweet tone that Derek knows is closely tied to arousal.

Tugging on the cuffs of his red jacket sleeves, Stiles asks, "that make you the Big Bad Wolf? Cause, to be honest, dude, I’d kill to see you in a moo-moo.”

Derek shakes his head, smiling fondly, and stands up, ready to leave.

Stiles’ hand curls around the back of his leather jacket, though, and he pauses to look at Stiles from over his shoulder.

He waits for Stiles to speak.

“I, uh… thanks, Derek.”

Derek nods, because — again, he can’t really put his feelings into words.

Stiles’ hand stays curled around the hem of his jacket, though.

He glances at Stiles’ hand, then Stiles’ face, and asks, “anything else?”

“I’m… uh…”

Derek’s brows curve in, patient, but worried about whatever condition Stiles is giving himself.

Stiles doesn’t look at him when he asks, “so, it’d be really dumb, and embarrassing of me to ask you to stay, right? Cause, I objectively get that I find guys attractive, but I have no experience with — not that I have much experience with anyone — but, I’ve never even kissed a guy, or even been close to kissing a guy — and, I mean, you wouldn’t want - ”

Stiles’ makes a soft, surprised noise when Derek’s mouth presses up to his.

Derek bends down at the waist, lets his hand come to cup Stiles’ cheek, and kisses him gently.

When he pulls back enough to look Stiles in the eye, their lips stick to each other a little, like even their bodies aren’t ready to stop.

Stiles’ eyes remain closed for a few beats, his eyebrows high, and arched. He opens them slowly, blinking into Derek’s eyes in astonishment.

Derek asks gruffly, “how was that?”

“Good,” Stiles answers a little breathlessly, “Really good. Spectacular, even.”

Derek smiles, and Stiles’ hands come up to the front of his jacket, tugging weakly, and he says, "you should probably give it another go, though. You know, in case… I’m wrong…”

Derek smirks, and Stiles adds, voice gravelly, and nervous, “or, you know… just because I want to kiss you.”

Derek nods at that, and answers by kissing Stiles again.

As Derek pushes Stiles back onto his bed, Stiles making sighs, and gasps, and soft moans against his mouth the entire way, he thinks to himself that if tomorrow, anyone asks him how he is, he might just say, “I’m good.”


End file.
